Psychology in Crisis

This book addresses the various methodological crises that face psychology. Psychology has made great strides since it came of age in the late 1800s. Its subject matter receives a great deal of popular attention in the news, and its professionals are recognised as highly trained experts with wide-ranging and valuable skills. It is one of the most in-demand science subjects in education systems around the world, and more of its research is being conducted – and funded – than ever before.However, while psychologists have long been cognisant of the challenges faced when striving for empirical rigour, numerous emerging crises threaten to undermine the discipline’s credibility. Controversial psychological findings have been shown to be based on illogical interpretations, erroneous analyses and even fraudulent research. Reviews of standard research approaches have revealed the risk of systematic error to be troublingly high, and the arbitrary ways in which psychologists draw conclusions from evidence has been highlighted, not least by the major scandal surrounding the American Psychological Association’s 2005 policy on torture.